Range of Light

Jagjaguwar;
2014

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Music from this release

S. Carey: "Fire-Scene"

S. Carey recently posted a series of pictures to his Instagram that correspond to each of the songs on his new album, Range of Light, but even without the visual aid you can practically see these images while listening. Each song possesses a filtered approximation of natural beauty, and the outdoor environment is a renewable resource for Carey’s songwriting: summer lakes in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, nights in Marfa, Tex., and the deserts of Arizona and California.

Range of Light is the first album Carey's recorded in Bon Iver bandmate Justin Vernon's April Base studio in Fall Creek, Wis.; he cobbled together his 2010 debut All We Grow while on tour with Bon Iver and built 2012's electro-folk Hoyas EP on mostly just a laptop. The warmth, reverb, and dusty textures here form something much larger than S. Carey has ever done before, but his real talent lies in making these songs seem tiny set against the world around him.

Even though Carey’s canvas is large, Range of Light is all detail—including his voice, which remains whisper-quiet and occasionally climbs to a hushed tenor akin to Sufjan Stevens. His voice is more up front than before, which gives these songs more shape as he interacts with the ceaselessly beautiful soundscapes, breaking up the serenity with songcraft. The syncopated “Crown the Pines” uses Justin Vernon’s falsetto as another background texture, but the busyness of the whole thing serves as a perfect jolt for the record.

A trained percussionist in both jazz and classical music, Carey’s arrangements add a sense of rustic whimsy to Range of Light—there's tapping on glass bottles, spoons on thighs, and what sounds like someone walking over gravel. Carey achieves his greatest successes when working in a more transportative mode, though: the stately “Alpenglow” builds to the end like a thawing post-rock opus, and closing track “Neverending Fountain” provides a cathartic ending. It's easy for these songs to stir the listener, and even easier for them to to whisk the listener away to a secluded piece of earth.

Paradoxically, Range of Light can sound a little too on-the-nose about embodying the majesty of nature and its meditative properties; there are greyscale cuts that possess cautious wonder and tumble-dry jazz tones, like Talk Talk left out in the cold for too long. Carey's destinations and recollections can retreat to a sleepy, melancholy safe zone. Regardless, Range Of Light is the first album that defines Carey apart from his bandmates and contemporaries, as his developed, earnest, Midwestern glow bursts through the album's cracks.